On Wednesday, Erik and I had dinner with Candice and Gareth and their 2 sweet children, and Kassandra, Clinton and Charmaine. Gareth cooked an amazing meal, BBQ, salad and carrot cake! What a fun family, we're glad we met them at Tiona.
The Unger and Care family
Friday, Jan 18th we had several varied excursions. We toured the ANZAC Memorial and Pool of Reflections. And the Museum of Contemporary Art. The highlight was a tour with Aunty Margret Campbell. She led us around The Rocks and shared Aboriginal Culture and History, by first welcoming us to Country with ochre. She owns a company called Dreamtime Southern X. Here's some info from her website.
"Margret, as the youngest member of her family, was schooled from the age of 5 onwards in her traditional custodianship, the Baranbyatti Mirra Buuka or Dreamtime Southern Cross. Growing up on Dunghutti Country on the North East Coast of NSW and in Yuin Country on the South Coast of New South Wales, Margret considers herself to be one of the lucky ones and treasures the rich legacy of her family’s Cultural Dreamtime inheritance.
To spend time with Margret is to understand both the inherent living wisdom and practical relevancy of her Ancestor’s Dreamtime Blueprint and the tangible, multi-dimensional ways in which the Dreamtime still influences and shapes our modern individual and collective belonging to this land we affectionately call down under. "
On Saturday, Erik and I went to the Rocks Market and found a Licorice shop. Yum! The owner/maker was very interesting. We even bought some beet root/acai licorice, it's not bad, even kinda good. We also attended a panel discussion called "Resilience and Recovery: Getting by and betting better" which was part of the Sydney Festival's UTS Big Thinking Forum.
Sunday, we went to the West Pennant Hills congregation and helped for several hours at a working bee and then had morning tea (which included lots more than tea!). That was fun. June and Malcolm Stephenson, new friends from Tiona, took us to their home for a refreshing dip in their pool and a wonderful meal. They drove us home, via Garigal National Park. An awesome visit, they knew Pappa and Mamma, so that was nice!
Erik headed to the Cricket with Ken and many of the students. It was a shorter match called "Big Bash League", only about 3 hours long. Brisbane got beat by Sydney, sadly.
The next week was filled with more lectures and excursions. We learned about "Women in history", "Telling Australian Stories via Art", "Australian Environmental History since European settlement" and "Media Analysis and Contemporary Australian Society."
We had a meaningful and stirring tour of the NSW Art Gallery, thanks Wes. Several students got to see him dance at the Yabun Festival, sorry that Erik and I missed that. We ate meat pies at Harry's Cafe de Wheels-I got an amazing pasty. We also went to the "Just not Australian" exhibit and the "Australian Museum".
Thursday evening we had a wonderful Italian meal with Julian and Marshall, two friends from reunion. Great conversation.
Our final day in Sydney was spent at the Royal National Park. This was the first year GED has included this on the trip and I'd say it was a success! The area is gorgeous and we hiked for several hours with a ranger. Such a gorgeous coastline. We got to swim in a creek and in the ocean and stopped for ice cream on the way home. A great day!!
Erik and I packed our things and took an early flight to New Zealand on Saturday.
Sydney was wonderful. We did lots of walking (my left foot didn't like that). We were able to watch a few movies at the Broadway Mall: Mary Poppins, Fantastic Beasts and Bohemian Rhapsody. We went to the Chinese Garden, Coogee Beach, had a Thai Massage-awesome and saw "The Voice Behind the Stars." Erik loved his visit to the Seafood Market and we loved our slice of Watermelon Cake at the Black Star Pastry. The temperatures were usually in the high 80s to mid 90s, so we were plenty warm, but we weren't as hot as it got 10 years ago. One day was 108! And while we were in Sydney, Adelaide had a day that was 118!
So long Sydney.
No comments:
Post a Comment